@Gniwder :
" That whole team was poorly coached and nobody did well, look at Laine's stats. They made the Wings look like a decent NHL team every game. Plus nobody knows how long he was playing with the injury before he brought it up to the team doctors. I'm not concerned about his ability to find his game, he seems to do well in new environments every time.
It's absolutely a gamble to take someone like Domi, but one that's worth it. If you think $5M is a lot, wait until you see what top end free agents are gonna go for. I also don't see opportunity cost as an issue because the team isn't going to hit the cap limit. They'd have to sign Landeskog, Ovechkin, AND Dougie to get there."
That's where the debate is. If there wasn't one, Columbus would surely protect him because they would at least get something for him by the trade deadline instead of losing him for nothing in expansion, right?
All I'm saying is you don't take a player unless you are confident you'll get something that outweighs the value you could otherwise get from that cap space now or down the line. Plenty of teams will lose cap flexibility once the season starts. We don't necessarily have to. It puts us in good position to take on a cap dump for something perhaps more valuable than what's apparently being offered to us right now.
The reason you're not seeing opportunity cost issues with our cap is because Francis has stayed away from the Domis, JVRs, Voraceks, Ghosts, Tarasenkos, etc, otherwise we'd be pretty close to the cap limit.
Trust me, I know how ridiculous UFA signings can get. We kinda already have one with Oleksiak. Sure, there's risk with everything, but at least you're more confident in the value you're getting with the players your staff have targeted. Domi doesn't seem to be one, at least not as an expansion pick. Again, I'm not sure why so many are acting as if these doors are now closed. If it makes sense, they can still make deals to take on gambles like Domi.